02-09-2018 Shamrock #1

Sweet Manhattan with a dash of Angostura and a teaspoonful of green creme de menthe to each drink. Shake.

Under Shamrock in Embury there are two quite distinct recipes, so I thought I’d make both. Other times this has happened I’ve glossed over it and just made the one that looked the best on paper, with this recipe I thought I’d make an exception and make both.

The word Shamrock just reeks of Ireland, so I was a little surprised to see an absence of Irishness about it, unless you link Green and Mint, but that seems a little construed. I’m hoping there was a large Irish Gentleman who drove popularity for this drink.

This drink is very similar to one of my favourites of this year, the Barry from 16th July, the only difference being the colour of crème de menthe, and that this drink has Angostura bitters and is shaken instead of stirred.

The Shaken vs Stirred difference is a strange one, I was constantly re-taught never to shake a Manhattan, or anything else neat with dark spirits as it made the drink go cloudy and was unpalatable. After this I’d almost disagree, I was never one for how the drink looked if I was drinking it myself, and one thing that happens when you do shake this is you get a small foam on top, which I always like on a drink, as it gives the drink a luscious mouthfeel. This was no exception.

The drink is better than the Barry, Manhattan drinkers may disagree due to the shaking, but the addition of bitters, and the extra cooling the shaking gives made this a perfect drink to sit outside in the sun with for, um, breakfast.